Islamist rebels shot down a warplane on Tuesday in an area south of the city of Aleppo where insurgents are battling the Syrian army and allied militias, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
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The strike was considered “counter-terror” in nature and conducted unilaterally, according to the official, hence it was absent from the daily airstrike reports released by the US -led coalition mission against the Islamic State.
Moreover, a Syrian warplane over Aleppo countryside earlier on Tuesday was shot down by the Nusra Front, which also captured the pilot alive.
Warring parties have repeatedly flagged alleged violations, which still are committed daily, especially by government forces, analysts and Syrian rebels say.
“Shame on you, you filthy pig!” some of the fighters said as they surrounded the battered and bruised pilot. He became an associate of bin Laden and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a senior al-Qaida commander who led the organization’s affiliate in Iraq following the 2003 US invasion.
One of the front leaders and a founder of extremist group Al-Nusra Front, Abu Firas, has died in an air strike in the Syrian province Idlib.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring organization, said 12 children and one emergency responder were among those killed in the attack in the town of Deir al-Asafir.
Both the Nusra Front and the Islamic State (IS) group are designated as terrorist groups by the United Nations and were excluded from a truce that has been in place since March.
Officials say separate suicide attacks outside the Iraqi capital have killed at least 10 troops.
Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said Monday that the US carried out an airstrike late Sunday on a senior al-Qaida “operational meeting” in northwest Syria that resulted in “several enemy killed”.
Russian warplanes have been carrying out airstrikes in Syria since September 30.
Syria’s partial cease-fire appeared to be unraveling on Saturday amid fierce fighting between government forces and opposition fighters, including members of the al-Qaeda affiliated Nusra Front.
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An activist group that monitors the Syrian civil war said that government forces are in control of most of the town after ISIL fighters withdrew to its eastern outskirts.
